Cultivation and Management of Hops. 347 
a system of training hops on wire, consisting of an arrangement, 
according to the fancy of the planter, of vertical wires communi- 
cating with horizontal wires. Large posts, stouter tlian telegraph 
posts, are fixed at the end of each row of hops, to which wires are 
fastened at the top and bottom. These wires run horizontally 
from post to post, and at every hill vertical wires are fixed 
between these two parallel horizontal wires, to which the bines 
are tied. By an improvement in Mr. Farmar's process, the iron 
work is so fixed that it may be easily taken down at picking 
time. 
Several planters in the Hereford, Worcester, and Farnham 
districts have adopted this method and speak favourably of its 
advantages. The first cost of it is put at 46/. per acre, and 
it is calculated that it will last for twenty years in an effi- 
cient state, while the usual method of poling is estimated at 
37/. 10*. as first cost, independently of the necessary yearly 
renewals of poles. The main objects of these patentees have 
been economy of cost and labour, and to obviate the neces- 
sity of cutting the bine. The latter has at all events been 
achieved, and time will prove whether the former has been 
attained. The great objection to the string plan is that it is 
unnatural for the hops to be trained horizontally. The nature 
of this plant is to climb spirally towards the light, making 
its revolutions with the course of the sun. Besides these " normal 
axial twistings " round the support near, each internode of the 
plant during its own development makes independent revolutions, 
varying in number according to its growth and other circum- 
stances.* Mr. Darwin remarks that " the purpose of this 
spontaneous revolving movement successively directed to all 
parts of the compass, is obviously in part to favour the shoot 
finding a support." It is manifest that a horizontal line would 
be quite out of the natural upward sweep of this movement, and 
that each internode must be fastened down to the slender string, 
as it commences its separate course. The axial twistings will 
be consequently multiplied, and the vigour of the whole plant 
diminished by these constrained efforts. In the case of vertical 
wires, it is believed that the bine would require constant tying, 
as its reflexed hooks would not have a firm hold upon the smooth 
wires, and that " short turns " would be general, which are usually 
thought to be indicative of want of vigour in the plant, and fatal 
to the chances of a good crop. 
The late Mr. H. Boys, of Northfleet, Kent, patented a method of 
training hops along diagonally inclined hurdle rods, or old small 
* 'On the Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants.' By Mr. Darwin. 
Williams and Norgate. 
VOL. VI. — S.S. 2 B 
